#and like. lots of it is perpetrated by liberals!! most of it ime! but it's the same damaging dynamic even so | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bringmemyrocks · 3 months

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Are you a convert to Judaism? When did you get interested and how long was the process? Im thinking about it

Hi anon, yes I'm a convert. I was orthodox for many years before going the more liberal/non-denominational route.

"How long is the process" really depends on:

Your denomination: Reform and some conservative or non-denom can have you done within a year. Orthodox may take longer unless you're getting married and/or have a lot of money.

It took extra long for me because I'm pig-headed and tried to be frum when I shouldn't have. The frum world didn't deserve me *hair flip*, and doesn't deserve any of the amazing queer people who still try to make it their home.

Don't be orthodox, anon.

Anon, if you want to learn about Judaism, read books, learn Torah, join a community, please don't get all or even half your information from Tumblr (and that includes me). Facebook groups can be a bit better but still not great.

This sounds like a TV pharmaceutical ad ("Ask God if Judaism is right for you!") but do try praying. Learn Jewish prayers in English, pray psalms in English or Hebrew or whatever language you want. Talk to God like you'd talk to someone you trust. (Some Jews call this "hitbodedut" because they think a hasidic rabbi invented it, but I don't think anyone can claim to have invented the practice of speaking to God outdoors.)

See if this tradition speaks to you. The Bible is free, and you can access a ton of English-language commentaries and prayer books (siddurim) for free on the website Sefaria.org. opensiddur is an online source with free prayer books, some have transliteration. Lots of synagogues stream their services to youtube. Judaism is not a closed tradition in any meaningful sense--you can visit, learn, eat all you want. Very few things in Judaism are truly reserved only for Jews, and you won't do them accidentally.

I don't have many book recs because most books people give orthodox conversion candidates are not worth the time you spend reading them. Some liberal Jews like "choosing a Jewish life" by Anita Diamant but I haven't read it myself.

The Book of Legends pulls the narratives/stories from the Talmud and puts them into an anthology, but the book is formatted terribly and it's not in the public domain yet, so nobody has fixed that. A lot of those stories made it into Nathan Ausubel's Bible Stories section in A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, which is a bit more accessible.

Anyone is welcome to comment book recs on this post for anon and I'll add them.

I can recommend you more books or resources if I know more about your theological background and/or current interests in religion.

Anyway.

Here's a copy-paste of my journey to Judaism that I wrote in August 2023. Entitled "Why Stay Jewish?" as a play on "Why Be Jewish?" It does not touch on the current genocide being perpetrated by Israel in the name of Judaism, but in case someone who doesn't follow me comes across this post:

Free Palestine from the River to the Sea. Zionists f off.

Everything below this line was written in August 2023:

Why Stay Jewish?

Aka “a religious Jew who still hasn’t read Heschel tries to assemble a coherent testimony for Judaism”

A few days ago, a friend asked me what drew me to Judaism. (Background: I decided to be Jewish almost 10 years ago, gave it up for a bit after burning out in orthodoxy, and ended up coming back a few years ago.) The TL;DR is that I’ve always been fascinated by religion, and my conversion was more driven by religious faith than by anything else.

This is a bit disjointed, but I don’t want to spend weeks editing a Tumblr post, so just going to post it as-is. I talk a decent amount about the theology of orthodox Judaism as well as that of various Christian sects, but I’ve tried to make this readable for anyone with a different theological background.

In 2015, progressive Christian leaders Nadia Bolz-Weber and Rachel Held Evans (RIP) started the “Why Christian” conference. The conference, which had its last meeting in 2019 shortly before Evans passed away, sought to answer the question “why be Christian in the twenty-first century?” Christian theologians such as Peter Rollins, Gustavo Gutierrez, and James Cone have all addressed this question when dealing with issues of race, class, and other axes of oppression. Evans and Bolz-Weber held “why Christian” conferences to discuss these questions, inviting both Christian leaders and lay people to talk about the role of Christianity in their own lives and in the world.

While my friend asked me “why did you become Jewish,” I feel (like Bolz-Weber and so many others) that the more pertinent question for me is “why do you stay Jewish?” Because if you’ve followed me or known me personally for any length of time, you know that I wrestle a lot with Judaism, and not in the cute “my lesbian rabbi makes jokes about fighting G-d in a Denny’s parking lot” way, and have done for the past decade. (No hate towards those who experience their religion this way; I imagine that’s a much easier path than the one I took.)

The short version is that I am a theist, someone who believes in God and revolves my life around this belief, and that I believe Judaism is the truest way to connect with God. I do not believe in intermediaries between people and God, not priests, rabbis, or any person.

My religious journey started off with me as a young Roman Catholic who chafed against the idea of priests as gatekeepers between people and God. Eventually my anti-intermediary philosophy applied to saints, Jesus, or any human institutions. Some people on here will say “Judaism isn’t Christianity minus Jesus!” but for me that was definitely part of the progression, stripping away useless layers that clung to my religious faith. I don’t think my conception of God himself has changed much since I was a child, and there’s good and bad in that. I wonder how many Christians have a similar concept of God that I did, loosely modalist with very little focus on the incarnation, that Jesus was always secondary and that the New Testament was interesting but not a theological guide except for its reinforcement of Old Testament concepts (Matthew 25 in particular comes to mind). Atonement theories were confusing and none really made sense. I was always the “odd Christian out” for preferring Matthew’s ethics-focused Gospel to John’s word-become-flesh.

When I learned that much of Jesus’ teachings came from the Torah, I decided to study those texts instead. The Jewish view of God (is there such a thing?) resonated with me far more. God as omnipotent and all-knowing creator, one who loves but whose love can be incomprehensible to the point of terror–I experienced the world and my religion as overwhelming at regular intervals, so it all made sense to me. I can be a bit more rational now (my rabbi is a philosophical though not political disciple of R. Slifkin), but the idea of God as imperfect in the Harold Kushner sense never sat right with me. Maybe I’d be happier if it did.

An aside: People online often tell Christians that “Judaism isn’t just Christianity without Jesus,” but I have an issue with that statement. There is no Christianity at all without Jesus. Even naturalist Christians who reject the idea that Jesus is literally God, or that God is a personal being rather than a nebulous force, even these Christians center their religion around the life and teachings of Jesus. Even Christians who view Easter only as symbolic are not practicing a “Christianity without Jesus”. They may have a very low christology, but their religion does not “lack Jesus” in any meaningful way. Even liberal Protestant Biblical scholars who agree that Jesus is not foretold as a messiah in the Old Testament still view the text through Jesus–they just filter their Christianity through liberation or womanist theology (both of which are Christian worldviews which believe in Jesus as a teacher and redeemer of some kind). This is not to condemn Christianity at all, conservative, liberal, academic, or otherwise; just to say that anyone who claims that Christianity minus Jesus is a religion or philosophy at all is mistaken.

I sought out Judaism because it was what I had been searching for all along in a religion: largely unencumbered access to God. What with learning Hebrew and realizing the difficult path that converts are put on (often unfairly), the “unencumbered” part became murkier, but still I stuck with it. Not all the rules made sense then, and not all of them do now. I used to be more comfortable davening with a mechitza, but now praying separately from women feels wrong and misogynistic.

My favorite Jewish communities have always been lay-led, using folding chairs rather than pews, and arks made from ikea cabinets, and plastic table bimahs. I’ve never been a fan of purpose-built synagogues. (Liturgically-inclined Christians would describe this as being “low church”.) I’m very no-frills in this way. Unfortunately, there’s a not insubstantial part of the Jewish world that also loves the casual, baggy mismatched clothes of the pop-up minyanim that I used to go to. It took me far too long to grasp this, perhaps out of denial, but the large knit kippot and colorful tichels and guitar music that I loved in the “left-wing” modern orthodox communities I was in are also widely popular among settlers, and have been for longer than I’ve been alive. (That and the music of Shlomo Carlebach, but that’s another post. TW for the all-too-common #metoo stuff.)

A lot of converts say they fell in love with Jewish culture, and that religious belief came later, but for me it was the opposite. Part of this may have been that unlike the vast majority of converts, I came to Judaism alone, without a romantic partner. (The vast, vast majority of converts to Judaism are heterosexual women converting to orthodox Judaism.) To me, God is central and always has been, and that’s one reason I fell into orthodoxy when my sexuality and politics would have otherwise made me more comfortable in a different denomination (thanks, Mordecai Kaplan). The New England frum culture I found myself in at age 19 was totally alien to me, and the misogyny and racism that I witnessed was both antithetical to my life philosophy but also something I was in no position to fight against. There is no single “Jewish culture”, but you wouldn’t know that from davening with the orthodox minyanim where I was. I became Jewish first as a young single man, with a tentative, arm’s length liking for the man-made tongue-and-mustard-eating, upper middle class world I found myself in. I did not love the Jewish world at first, and I still find it difficult to love my fellow Jews uncritically. Racist grandfathers are all too common among people of all backgrounds, and Jews are no exception.

In this century, I don’t believe my love for the Jewish world will ever be uncomplicated. It’s been poisoned by nationalism and chauvinism, some of which has roots in trauma, but most of which instead has much deeper origins in centuries of racism learned in Europe and the USA. And much of the Jewish world has no love for me, either. But still I pray three times daily, often in English and rarely from a siddur except for Monday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. I wonder if I’m just wired this way. Since Sinai, since birth, since learning that praying was something I could do, perhaps.

I remember speaking to an evangelical pastor many years ago about my relationship with God after I had left orthodoxy and was trying to do church again, seeing it as the next best option. I realized that while I had had little trouble setting up theological discussion places for LGBT people of faith since I was 15, I could not speak of my own religious experiences easily. I told him that God had been my comfort since I was young. That I turned to God in times of strife and also saw God’s beauty in the world (sorry, Karl Barth). God was refuge, redeemer, source of wisdom, sometimes in the world and sometimes not. I had no experiences with Jesus directly, and this pastor never pressed me on my christology. He seemed, as I was at the time, fine with me not knowing which “person” of the Trinity was the source of my theological experiences. I saw God in my experiences, and while I liked reading theology, I never found Aquinas or Tillich particularly interesting. I preferred Buber and Nouwen with their deeply personal writings. I felt there was more soul there. I left out the fact that if I’d discovered that I was halachically Jewish, I would have jumped ship immediately and stopped practicing Christianity.

I don’t have many points that I could point to as a “testimony”, a particular life event that convinced me that God was real, or that a particular stream of Judaism was my lifesource. In his Varieties of Religious Experience, William James describes “peak experiences” as intensely religious experiences that someone can have. My journey has had few of these, preferring to take a more slow, scenic path. Not every journey of the mind and heart has moments of blinding light or burning bushes. But I’ll try and pick out a few, in loosely chronological order. Not all of these are directly Jewish, but I’m including them because they help frame my “spiritual autobiography”.

----------------

The first is a recurring dream I had between 2015 and 2019. It drew on the story of Thecla, an early follower of Paul the apostle. When she was led into the arena to be killed by lions, she baptised herself first so she could be baptised before her death. I had a similar dream that repeated itself every few months, minus the lions, in which I immersed myself in water while those around me refused to baptise me. I don’t believe in clairvoyance, but I do think of them as the brain’s way of communicating with itself. In this context, I had been prohibited from joining any religious community, and was willing to do almost anything to achieve that.

Another experience I had was in a class on Catholic mysticism. (Most of my study of academic theology has been in Christian environments, largely because Christians are more amenable to teaching in English.) I experienced something not-quite akin to psychosis, in which images and sounds from my old Jewish life flooded my brain. I spent the entire two-hour lecture drawing the pictures of the shul that came to mind (the Ikea-branded ark, the men in assorted hats and yarmulkes, the mechitza a cheap cream-colored curtain hung on a washing line, etc.) At the time, it felt like part of me was dying. Perhaps it was, perhaps it still is–I’m no longer orthodox, and in good conscience can’t be again.

My experience with religion has always had large positives and large negatives. When I finally did my mikveh a few years ago, I told one of my (only remaining) frum friends, and his immediate response was “that’s lovely news, especially after [proceeds to infodump all the depressing queer frum news that I’m not privvy to living outside NYC.]”

I’ve talked about this next one before, but I got to attend a mostly-secular Jewish retreat last year, and went with the bf. The one genuinely non-secular part of it was an optional kabbalat shabbat service led by a former-haredi now non-denom rabbi and a cantor from a similar background. They didn’t have siddurim or anything, so we all just sang from memory. I got to sit next to my bf with my arm around him–the very concept of singing yedid nefesh while being openly, visibly gay was insane to me, but I got to do both there. I’m always glad that my partner (or his being secular) pushed me to explore outside of orthodoxy, because it’s been a much better experience. Sometimes the familiar isn’t always what’s safe. (A more innocent example of this would be my cat, who used to be a street kitty. He still prefers sleeping on plastic bags or pizza boxes to sleeping in a real bed. In the same way, I felt more comfortable in environments that placed heavy restrictions on gender and sexual identity, even if they didn’t kick you out the door.)

People have described me as “passionate” and “obsessive” about my faith, and I don’t think this is a false characterization. Someone who felt less passionately that God alone should be worshiped could have been happy in a UCC or Unitarian church, but such was not true for me. I won’t weigh in directly re: Christianity being avodah zara (idol worship) except to say that much of orthodox Judaism doesn’t see it that way. (Tovia Singer does not speak for most orthodox Jews in most matters, and I think that if people want to worship literal or figurative idols, we should leave them alone and not harass them in the street.) Rather, I would compare Christianity to any sect of a religion which demands its followers approach God through a human intermediary (make of this what you will). Rebbe Nachman has some interesting ideas, but I don’t chant mantras with his name as some of his followers do. I finally tried learning kabbalah last year, and I found it surprisingly dry. Very intricate, but why split God into a tree of life when you have God already? Perhaps I’m too single-minded. If I had more faith in myself, I would say I'm Maimonidean.

It’s interesting being a scholar of religion while simultaneously being religious. Last spring I had to do a systematic theology course to finish my Master of Divinity degree, and I failed to articulate my personal theology very well, and I didn’t do very well in the class. I had a passion for God and for what’s right and wrong in the world, but even after decades of study, I still couldn’t make my theology make sense to my liberal protestant professors. (And I don’t think I’m doing the best job now.) If I had known more Maimonides at the time, I would have invoked him rather than trying to explain Judaism on my own, convoluted, contradictory terms.

I was always more theologically comfortable around evangelicals because they didn’t mind me talking about God and not circling back to Jesus and his lessons. There’s an almost Marcionist impulse among some liberal Protestants to insist that every book in the Old Testament be either discarded (side-eyes the Revised Common Lectionary), or viewed solely through the lens of Jesus.

Brian Zahnd insists on this reading in his Sinners in the Hand of a Loving God, a condemnation of what he sees as “fire and brimstone Christianity.” To his credit, Zahnd argues against literalism in the New Testament just as much as he insists the “Jesus lens” be applied to the Old Testament. This isn’t to condemn Zahnd or his theology–the man has theological chops, something that can’t be said for much of the often-fundamentalist neo-Anabaptist world (David Bercot et al.) I just don’t personally find Zahnd’s worldview convincing with the weight I give the Old Testament.

For so much of my life, Judaism was orthodoxy. It’s hard to construct a systematic theology outside of that, especially when I find myself frustrated with Buber and Rosensweig and their insistence on mischaracterizing Christianity in treatises in order to give Judaism an identity. A Jew who wants to read about Judaism without passive aggressive lashon hara about Christianity often ends up reading orthodox work. Ironically, I know now that in modern orthodox Jewish works, this lack of antagonism is largely because of R. Soloveitchik’s strong aversion to interfaith dialogue, especially with Christians, as expressed in his Vatican II-era essay Confrontation. So while I saw orthodoxy as less opposed to other religions, it was in fact the opposite–there was so much opposition, they barely even acknowledged that the Reform movement existed after 19th century Berlin. Maybe this is a sign to try reading Heschel again. He, Kaplan, and Judith Butler can have a race to the bottom on most incomprehensible philosophy, but people tell me I’ll like his ideas.

One thing my rabbi has taught me (same former haredi rabbi as mentioned above) is that ritual and religiosity don’t have to go hand in hand. I can decide not to bench after meals if it makes me happier and still pray as often as I want. The phrase “religious Jew” often obscures the many non-orthodox Jews that exist. I can be fulfilled without scrubbing my oven with a toothbrush every March. God is everywhere, so relax, I guess.

We’ll see.

Added today, February 5 2024:

A friend later pointed out that I talk a lot about God and not a lot about Torah in this post. I'll reflect on that again sometime and see if I can come up with something. I forgot that I tried to psychoanalyze my dreams to try and construct a testimony last year. That's funny.

I've been reading a lot of Elmer Berger, and while his books aren't systematic theology, they describe a liberal religious Judaism that exists apart from Zionism. Highly recommend reading him because any Jew or Jew-curious individual should. Most of his books are free on the Internet Archive.

Oh boy anon, bet you didn't expect something that long-winded, huh? I think we almost hit 4000 words there.

Feel free to ping me with more questions.

#jewish convert #conversion to judaism #judaism #long post #me and religion #i #anon #ask #asks

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floralkittygambler · 3 years

Text

Reposting for reasons

Response to Honest’s post here: Doing this to spread this awareness more as I know theres a bit of a rift in the critical community - plus I really fucking go on. Im PISSED and I do apologise however it NEEDS urgent addressing. I know people will hate me for it but Im used to hate and honestly? Hating rather than helping to solve the issue only furthers my fucking point here. So yeah this is so more people are aware (no offense to any of those involved in said rift either, but this is an important message. Thank you for understanding and if I can do anything to make all sides comfortable, then please message me and I’ll do my upmost.) “ More awareness of this is needed. Even if it’s your favourite, you can’t justify their shit but rally against another’s shit. Have people tell you you’re experiences arent real or invalid because, like Husk, people have - in real life - shipped you with someone you are far from comfortable with but you still treat them like a person. Because you have basic respect. And people force you to accept harassment, touching, stalking, advances for THEIR satisfaction. People use you for their fantasies. But you’re just a ‘tsundere’ for it. Or you have addiction issues but people think being with another addict will ‘save’ you because you’re apparently too incompetent to save yourself. Love isnt some magic fuckin cure so stop romanticising it as a fuckin saviour. It’s gross and fuckin creepy. Get stalked and have someone NEVER accept your no just because you show youre still decent enough to not treat them shitty or any different from anyone else. Try having someone way older or way younger (both in morally fucked up ways) advance on you and people encourage that. People you’re supposed to feel safe around.

People touch you when you pull away or show discomfort. Follow you home. Have pictures of you and wont accept you dont like them like that and it’s not ‘playing hard to get’ or ‘the thrill of the chase’. Fuck. OFF. In fact, Im not only disappointed in the fandom. Im disappointed in the entire team who some should know better from their OWN personal experiences - or at least the bare minimal of being a fucking adult. Im disappointed in especially females (sorry idk whether girl or woman is more appropriate here-) who statistically are more likely to have experienced something similar at some point in their lives think this is a cute gay moment. No. Angel is made out as a fucking predator - Im not saying he is, Im saying that his persistence is very fucking unwelcome like one. People like Husk dont need that fucking invasiveness. They/We need patience and someone on our level. Angel’s I know are the fuckin polar opposite - and some of them I know are very sexually harassing, including unwanted touching. It’s a shitty way to present gay people. Gays are fuckin people. Some are cunts and some arent. It’s a HUMAN thing. But considering the shit theyve been subjected to, presenting a gay as a victim only to also show them as a perpetrator is insulting! And for those Ive seen argue this about how people like AD wouldnt know how to express their love normally and whatnot? His pig. His best friend. He’s in his fucking 30s. There are literal real life criminals who get molested as kids and then go on to molest kids. Not all who grow up like that turn into nonces. Stop just fucking STOP justifying and romanticising this bullshit! I used to see the good in AD but now he makes me fucking sick. Especially with my verrrrrry fucking real traumas and connections. But fuck me, eh? Because this fictional guy matters so much more. Fuck real victims. And whilst we’re at it, fuck AD too when it suits your fetishes! Sarcasm aside, the fans and the team need to straighten up their abhorrent behaviour. Stolas. Fucking clearly having an affair, knowingly fucking up his daughter’s mental health and bribing a guy into sex who only wants the book and nothing more. He even has a fucking warning button over Stolas- Guys, how do you think any of this is cute? Even the team gross me out- I genuinely see potential and talent and it’s all gone to shit to satisfy horny teens, horny adults, and literally everyone who doesnt for the life of them understand being an adult is more than sex, drugs, violence and swears! I REALLY want to keep enjoying HB/HH but it’s getting harder and harder with such ignorant and bordering lazy creators (note: lazy as in wont do the fucking research or actually listen to real criticism and victims), such despicable fans (yeah, some HDers fuckin mocked that they triggered my ED, yet they had the fucking NERVE to support Angel’s potential ED AND laugh and blame me for me getting treated so badly for actually having the balls to call Angel and the teams hypocrisy. I got told to kill myself, that my problems arent real - oh but Angels apparently is! Which... They *are* but AD isnt real so technically only onlookers will suffer and not a drawing - and they just excused their toxic behaviours. These people are like “aww poor angie babey!” yet fuckin INSULT sex workers. All this red in Hazbin yet it feels everyone and they mama colour blind. The issues are getting worse and fans are outright becoming EVIL, VILE, Vindictive little bullies - from kids to adults. You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself if you conduct yourself in such a manner. And you need to readjust your attitudes and behaviours because the only fuckers getting hurt are actual fucking victims. Ever been violated and been gaslit so much you STILL fucking question it’s reality? So you drown that shit out yet somehow it’s effects still hit you? Fetishise it. Make it your uwu gae couple goals, you’re no better than people believing Harley and the Joker werent toxic af. If this shit happened to you, most of you would actually SEE where we’re all coming from. Also, stop making gay a fetish - you’re like those creepy old men in the alley heckling lesbians to make out so they can wank off. Gays, no ALL the LGBT+ are fucking people too. So dont give me that bullshit then start turning everything just gay or just straight to mentally wank off to. It’s degrading and dehumanising. And yes, fiction does effect reality. You crush on a fictional character? Mourn one? Support one? Hell, fuckin jerk off to one - that’s affecting reality. Remember how in fiction all blacks were treated as villians? Look how theyre treated IRL. JAWS, great classic unfortunately their was a spike in shark killings over a fucking movie - the shark in the movie wasnt even real for the most part because they dont behave like that! (Also the animatronic was so shit they genuinely had so many issues - I think they even took to naming each one! Some fun trivia there!). Tiger sharks are more nasty than great whites as tiger sharks will hunt and eat a human. Great whites prefer seals and dislike human flesh, they just mistake us for seals. Hell, theres the toothless basking shark - theyre often SWAM WITH by divers for being so friendly. Yet Jaws made people think all sharks are bloodlusting over humans. Slenderman was created for a fucking contest and that influenced a stabbing (NOT Victor’s fault). Watch a horror movie that isnt based on a real life event and tell me that at least ONE has left you peaking over your shoulder. Stella may be a bitch - we dont know for certain - but try getting cheated on. Y’know what? Try growing up in such a broken home like Octavia. Yeah reaaaaaal fucking cute now, huh? Funny how as well y’all petition for male victims to be taken seriously then laugh when fictional males experience this abuse, further adding to stigma. You can be hit on by the hottest mf on the planet but if you arent interested, that should be respected! Also we’ve all been inspired by at least one fictional character so yeah. Yknow, since I was little Ive been fighting for sex worker and homeless rights. But HH/HB treatment of both leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I’ll still fully support sex workers and the homeless, but that’s the fucking effect this show is having. Bearing in mind I wont ever share everything Ive been through - and I shouldnt fucking have to in order to be believed and validated (obvs proof is required in a legal case but that’s a whole other topic). Why should I share MY fucking pain especially when you fuckers have belittled and triggered it more so? We have our rights to our secrets but fuck ME you lot NEED to start acting appropriately and like decent fucking humans. ‘iTs HeLl’ yeah and welcome to Earth- the team and yourselves live HERE. You obide by THESE rules. And as someone with beliefs (and a LOT of ancient fucking texts and studies on this shit) their Hell isnt even a proper Hell! It’s closer to purgatory and even then it’s not. Regardless, it’s a poorly built world with the lore consistently changing per episode and tweet, with many plot holes, and is apparently easy to get into - even via accidentally watching porn according to a stream. If youre gonna parade youre a fucking expert and research into demonology and use real believed figures, at least get THAT right. In fact, Lucifer and Lilith (and Stolas tbf) are ESPECIALLY risky as theyre a lot more complex than most easy access texts will tell you. Likewise, Stolas’s first introduction and main focus is sex. He’s one of the FEW Goetia demons that dont have some involvement in relationship issues at ALL. He’s known for astrology, crystals and herbs but hes also known to aid MONEY troubles (it’s lesser known but it’s true! HB Stolas is an insult to the Prince). Turning Vodou into something evil is vile considering it’s powerful and liberated slaves. Pentagrams are nothing to do with Satan, they’re magic based sigils. Upside down cross is the symbol of a SAINT. It’s just some edgy attempt to trick people into believing they know more than they do. Also you should NEVER dabble and doodle sigils without knowing the meanings or respecting what they behold. Vox and Val, real fuckin cute way to make them look like a stupid fucking highschool drama instead of a fucking SEX TRAFFICKER (note: real pimps often target YOUNG folks too - aka minors - and groom them into sex work. Theres different types of pimp. Viv has shown barely any understanding of ‘the game’ and its a fucking insult to injury. Yes we KNOW what a fucking pimp and prozzie are! We dont need to see it. We need REAL AWARENESS.) and a fucking scheming bastard of a CEO salesman botman. And yet even THEN lets go a step further and make some yandere wuv on boyfweind aboose! Fuck off- Now I love a good anime but these tropes are getting fucking dangerous now. And unrealistic to real love and relationships. Kids nowadays know fuck all on a healthy relationship (neither did the fuckin 50s tbf) and Im seeing more romaticism and glorifying abusive situations. Like the show ‘You’. Ok, there’s a fuckin bloke online who slaughtered innocents and kidnapped yet people commented how cute he is on his IG and that they want to be kidnapped or killed by him next. Dont believe me? Look up Peter Manfredonia Connecticut and the comments people left him and then tell me why shit like whats being presented in HH/HB ISNT fucking concerning - because it is. For a series about redemption, it’s brilliant at the opposite (Quote from the creator herself, Viv has posted that it’s influencing her bad choices. Even as a joke, proof’s in the pudding). And the overall focus on sex in the way Viv does is so immature and really creepy, and this is from an ADULTS perspective. From one adult to another, Im concerned as to why any of them think this is a normal fixation. Then again they’ve hired quite a large amount of dodgy folks and even a child. Most of this shit gets avoided with a basic background check like most companies run. I DO like Hazbin. Or the premise. I love some of the cast and spite the others. In Helluva, I just like a tiny portion of the cast. And I critique it so harshly because Viv DOES need a wakeup slap, grounding to reality, people who arent going to big her up or kiss her arse for once and shape her up to be the best she can be. The actually reach and even surpass her potential. And to reach where you need to be, there’s a lot of harsh lessons youll face. That’s life. Shes chosen one of the most HEARTLESS industries and if she blocks out critique as ‘hate’ then she’s not strong enough and wont last. It’s just another unprepped YanDev again (except I dont believe Viv to be a nonce. Even with her dodgy past and dodgy present, I think her perspective on sex and relationship with sexuality is FAR from healthy BUT I dont believe she’s a pedophile. Ive bled my fair share and so far, I just think her sex perspective isnt healthy or mature for her age. But there’s little to nothing to suggest actual noncery - dont worry about accusations there. But YanDev is totally a dirty predator. Just clearing that up). Viv NEEDS some harshness and stability if she wants to do things right. And it’ll make her fucking cry but if she loves these projects as much as she claims to, then you’ll sacrifice blood, sweat and tears for that shit. Even the strongest points are mediocre at best when properly observed. She CAN do more, but she’ll have to face the harsh music. Viv wont see this, but if she does, I dont care if it upsets her. Why? Because this is that much of an issue - something she’s cultivated - that she needs to take action and not ignore it or be secretive about it. She needs to grow up and get tougher skin. Im not saying this to cause her pain. In fact, I wouldnt waste my fucking limited time if I DIDNT care. Trust me, I have duties to be met at a certain quota every single day. I say this shit only because I give a shit and care. If we met, she’d fucking hate me. But people like me are good for shaping people up to their potential. And we arent always this ‘tough love’ either. But when someone needs that level of harshness to help themselves, we’re not afraid to lose people or cause upset if the results end up being the best for them. If she ever saw this, she needs to re fucking evaluate her message, her story, and those she’s choosing to welcome into her circle. And all Im seeing is one rookie mistake after the other. Her paid patreon discord. Just like the messages Honest has posted on her side of being harassed (not in Vivs fyi), Ive experienced shit and bullying and even stay silent on their for being attacked for a group I fuckin paid to be in and yet I feel isolated. It’s all arsekissing and ‘thank you viv’ (thats an actual channel-) and it feels like a place of borderline worship and people trying to appease her 24/7 whilst kicking others with different opinions down. There’s so many I love but I aint kissin yer fuckin arse. Ask the closest friend I have - we’re fucking raw and wont just side with each other just because. We’ll call each other out if we think they’ve fucked up and then help each other build themselves up better. Because real fuckin people who actually care wont just want to be adored by you. They’ll care enough to point out your bullshit and help you, even if they upset you at the time. They’re real and upfront with you. People like us arent always the easiest to be close to either because we arent afraid of upsetting someone if it’s in their best interest and to help them. Likewise, we dont go out looking for fights either. Most times, we’re fuckin soft bastards- All this shit listed is the fuckin surface level of the real life hell of this fandom. And unsurprisingly, those who experience little to no toxicity have always been higher on that popularity ‘food chain’ - enough admirers and shared opinions that people wanna arse kiss regardless of their OWN feelings as well as neutral perspectives. I’d say you’re the lucky fans, but you’re not. You’re sheltered, and that isnt always the best way to be sadly. As for the fans. If Ive upset you. Well... I dont care. Because many of you have actively sought me out and weaponised my traumas against me. You never cared about my feelings then. Why should I care about yours? Im not doing this out of malice. Im fed up of humans behaving so pathetically yet claiming to be high and mighty. Most of you have been arseholes to those in and out of the community. The victims and non-victims alike. Hardly any of you considered once my real suffering. You put a drawing over a life. Many lives. You had the audacity to tell me Im full of shit. Some even using my real traumas to make a mockery of me and those Im around with a very similar history. Some with traumatic histories that differ from my own. You hardly ever considered the real lives of those effected. So no, Im not sorry for having the fucking balls to this day to still stand up for our rights and give us a voice that’s long been stolen. Im not sorry for being a fucking victim. Im not sorry for saying what desperately NEEDS voicing. And Im not sorry for not conforming to you or any fandom just to belong. We deserve better than to constantly be your fuckin arse monkeys (well... the trope is butt monkey but yknow-) and to be mistreated, misrepresented and harmed by you. You’re no different to the school bullies who give speeches on anti-bullying day. And I hope every single one of you starts looking into yourselves and improving. PS: Depending on the texts you read, Lucifer is said to have been redeemed or to be redeemed. Fun fact to haunt yalls with~ “

#warning long #long post #hazbin critical #very long rant #important #hear victims voices #just sick of how awful people can treat one another and believe this is acceptable #everyone is accountable #toxic fanbase #Toxic shippers #toxic ships #im literally too fucking old for this #forgive the anger but after years and years it gets so cumbersome and tiring #im happy to be the pariah if it means victims actually get heard and helped

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diaryofanangryasianguy · 5 years

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im Chinese but I live in the uk and all the sinophobia makes me so mad bc I'm very critical of the Chinese govt but instead of doing anything useful I have to spend my time fighting white leftists and liberals who believe everything the ccp propaganda machine spews out. they rlly think that every Chinese person is a brainless cog in the machine when there's sm ppl who don't support the govt but no way for any of us to speak out

(pt 2 sorry) i genuinely think its so hard for any non-chinese person who hasn't visited/lived in china within the last 3-5 years to conceptualise how everything has changed there. theres sm nuance needed when talking abt Chinese politics but thats just completely absent from any discussion I've ever seen in the west its so disheartening it makes me feel like I should give up a lot of the time. ppl don't want to care abt Chinese ppl and they'll find any reason to justify that

Yeah. Tbh most people have never even been to China so they don’t know how it’s really like there. The only perception people have about China is just negative stuff whether it be from the CCP or from US media outlets making every single thing coming out of there bad. Speaking of, I can’t remember the last time I’ve read an article about China that wasn’t perpetrating paranoia or negativity.

Tbh I dislike feeling like I keep defending China because of all the shit that’s going on there and all the human rights they’re going against. But at the same time, we can’t accept all the sinophobia that’s being perpetrated either and how every Chinese person or person in China shouldn’t be demonized for what Xi and the CCP are doing.

It sounds kind of bad when it’s put like that, doesn’t it? We’re torn between defending all kinds of people and things, cherry-picking about what little pieces to defend or not. Kind of shows that some situations just aren’t simple enough to be 100% for or against.

Maybe we just need to live in a place to see for ourselves what’s really going on in it. But then it’s like we all can’t just do that so we have to pick and choose. Which also sucks because it’s like we don’t wanna hurt specific groups of people but then no matter what, someone else is gonna get hurt.

Like damn, why can’t people just be fucking nice to each other and stop being greedy, supremacist assholes. Ain’t gonna lie but that’s what Xi and the CCP are. Same thing goes for the global crackers always thinking they’re better.

Angry Asian Guy

#anon #ask #long reads #tw sensitive material

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archagentnexus · 6 years

Text

Archagent Scenes: Johann and Jakob Talk

(Scene Context + Synopsis: Johann and Jakob are at the top floor of the Archagent HQ tower in the hallway just before the doors to the High Chancellor's throne room. The two are arguing about the future of the Covenant in what direction it needs to go for the good of mankind. In this last half of their exchange, Jakob is appalled by Johann’s suggestion that they dissolve the House of Lords, a parliamentary congregation of wealthy/talented mages that are “elected” to represent their particular country or district of the country.)

[AN: There are a lot of references to the Archagent lore in this. So much so that I can’t really put up a reference page at the moment, but if you’re ever curious about more on the details of the context, just IM me or shoot me an ask!]

"Johann, y-you can't be serious! How could you say that after all we've done to stop the civil war? To put an end to the madness caused by Richtofen and his Eve of Adam?" cried out Jakob in disbelief.

Johann held a strong posture with his hands folded meticulously behind his back as he was facing the window away from Jakob. "Do not presume to know me, child. I am aware that the Archagents who collaborated with the Eve, regardless of their intentions and personal beliefs, were dangerous fanatics and traitors to our cause. We are in agreeance on this... however..." His stoic expression becomes grim, almost angry when recollecting his thoughts on Eve’s attempted coup. "While I condemn their actions wholeheartedly and shun their New Human supremacy nonsense, the one thing I cannot ignore is their anger... and where it stems from." He turns his head over his shoulder just slightly to address Jakob more directly. "You of all people should have seen and heard what was going on in that battlefield... For on both sides, the Archagents did not just mourn the loss of their comrades, the people who they once called friends and family, but they screamed out in utter confusion... as to why protecting the House of Lords was considered loyal while the Eve's attempts at purging the corrupt Magistrate system was considered treason."

Jakob bit his lower lip. He knew well enough what Johann was talking about. He was there. He knew where that pain stemmed from, that anger... and yet... "We don't get to decide that, Johann. You know the face of the New Eden Covenant depends on our ability to preserve our own ideals on democracy! We need that balance. We need to be able to divide that power amongst ourselves even if we disagree. How could the rest of the world view the Archagents as 'liberators' if we suddenly decide to become usurpers and act like our own brand of Gods? It's not right, nor is it just-"

“Just?!" roared out Johann as he turn around, picked up Jakob by the collar of his blouse several feet into the air and pinned the frail brunette against a marble pillar with his massive forearm. "Since when has turning a blind eye to the Magistrate's whole history of corruption ever been just?! Our whole civil war was made possible because of their petty factionalist politics, their greed, their exploitation of OUR ideals!"

After a few seconds of taking deep breaths from the outburst, Johann released Jakob who collapsed on the floor wheezing as he struggled to get up and compose himself upright. "I... I understand why you're angry," said Jakob quietly. "I've read the archives... about the deal that was struck to stop the investigation on the German magistrates for any collaborators of the Hand of Faust in exchange for-"

"You're too young to understand, child," interrupted Johann. "You haven't lived long enough to have seen that history yourself. You may have your books and your data, but you never had to sit there and watch the very people, the perpetrators to the destruction of your homeland, become part of the most powerful government in Western Europe and then watch them receive praise and gifts as if they were also heroes of humanity... You never had to hold your tongue and had to listen to the mass graves that cry out for justice when you knew you could deliver but chose not to... because you were told that this was for the greater good..." Johann's voice trailed off as he turned away and started pacing to cool himself off.

Jakob frowned deeply as he walked slowly and hesitantly over to the other. "I get it, Johann... I know what that's like. Believe me, I do. I-I know you've always looked down on me... for having been the Optic's branch leader because of the circumstances around Richtofen and the Third Generation... Not once did I ever believe that I deserved to take that position nor did I ever desire it myself, especially not after know who my predecessor was... but even still... the Third Generation was my fault. It was based on my serum, the one I thought Richtofen was going to implement safely with adults who willingly consented--- but ignorance is never an excuse for the lives lost. I know this... and I have to live with that every day, trying to make amends by helping the ones who did survive while ensuring that we never go down this route again... And for a long time, I felt that the burden of guilt was all on me, but I realize that... it's not just about me, but it's about how the Covenant had participated in letting it go this far... That's why for me, it's important that we always do the right thing, so we never have to go down that path again."

Johann remained silent for a moment then he speaks without moving a muscle. "If you truly believe that, then you know that the right thing to do is to abolish the House of Lords and have the Magistrates subordinate to the Archagent's authority."

"No! That isn't the right thing to do.... E-Even if we destroy what's corrupt, whatever we do to replace that system, to restructure our society, no matter what, it would be on a foundation of fear!"

"Humanity has always acted in the interest of embracing as well as combating their fears, Bishop. The fear of death, the fear of loss, the fear of being isolated and forgotten... these things drive every human instinct and rationale. It is not an unnatural thing that we should be honest about that. When the Magistrates fall in line, they will do so because being alive and having some semblance of their former power will be in their self-interest... Meanwhile the public will, for the most part, have no qualms about this either. They would be joyous at the fall of a decaying bureacracy set up by the elite Magistrates and would either cling to our promises of security, which we would always uphold justly, or they will quietly dissent amongst themselves, but they know either way, they wouldn't change a thing because we'll still provide for them everything else they need."

"But you would take away the one thing that the Archagents had promised them from the very beginning, Johann," said Jakob sternly. "You would take away their hope."

"Hope!" scoffed Johann as he turned to face Jakob with distainful eyes. "And what use has hope to do with us now? They should be grateful that they still have hope to see tomorrow in which they are not yet forced under the heels of Angels or Demons! You are a man of science and rational thinking yet you fancied such pitiful thoughts as creating a system of governance soley based on hope?"

"And what is wrong with wanting to preserve hope?" demanded Jakob. "Is it not every man and woman's right to want something better for themselves and the people they love? Is it not our nature to desire the future in which we could be truly free from fear and not bound by it? I do not need to remind you... that the very core of our Psionics, our power, is predicated on the concept of our Willpower... and mind you, I would be damned if such a thing were never influenced by clinging to our hopes and our dreams."

"Hmph. You speak appropriately for your youth. So silver tongued, yet damnably naive..."

"And you talk as if you've never had hope once in your entire life!... But we both know that's a lie..." Jakob's expression softens now. "Somewhere in you, you must have believed in that too... at some point in your life, right?"

The muscles under Johann's visibly twinged with a mix of incomprehensible emotion before he snarled at the other. "Don't play therapist with me, child. That pitiful game only works on the broken and the lost, and I am neither of these things... And whatever hope I once felt before has long since past. You surely must have done your homework and read into my tragic history and how I lost my family all those decades ago, but I've since moved past that-"

"I wasn't referring to that, Johann... I was talking about Sindro... your former apprentice."

Johann froze and for the first time in what seemed like decades, his expression lost color as it displayed shock.

"He and I were close friends you know, so... it shouldn't really come off as surprising in that he has talked plenty about his experiences with you when you mentored both him, Palladino, and Ulysses... He spoke highly of you, you know... and not in the obvious sense of how powerful or awe-inspiring you were as a leader, but how you were... 'coming around' near the end of the apprenticeship... He was proud to have been your apprentice, did you know that? He thought of you as his fath-"

"Enough," snapped Johann though the anger in his voice trailed wistfully.

Normally Jakob would have stopped to let the other recover and absorb all this, but the outcome of this conversation was too important to allow Johann's stubborness to reemerge. "Just answer me this. Did you not have high hopes for him at the time? When you got to shape him into the man that we knew and honored?"

"...So what if I did?" growled Johann. "Even then, where has that sentimentality led us? Led him? Six feet under, that's where! He didn't just carry my hopes, Bishop. He carried EVERYONE'S hopes! The day he died was the day... the day I'd failed him... that I let myself believe too much in the pipe dreams of a foolhardy boy who let the weight of his heroic symbol crush him, and because of that, I let him die when I could have been there to save him... It was the day I had to, once again, bury a son of my own making and then carry that pain with me until the day I die!" Johann gritted his teeth and tightened his fists, shouting at Jakob now. "Is that what you wanted to hear? That I’m just some senile old man who’s afraid of loss and pain? That I have no one else to protect while you have everything?"

"No, you're wrong, Johann!" insisted Jakob. "You don't have nothing... You may have secluded yourself from the rest of the world, but there are things that are still here for you. Your other students are still here and alive. Are they nothing? You wouldn't have trained them unless you felt something for them right? Or what about Zep in particular? Sindro's apprentice? His hopes and dreams live through Zep in a new light! Are you to tell me that everything you done to help Zep and everything that Zep has done to prove he's gotten strong enough to stand against an oppressive world means nothing?"

Johann looked away in defiance as a look of pain and confusion marked his features.

"And what about Elise?... Your own granddaughter? An individual who had nothing, was born into nothing, and yet she now sits as the new High Commander of the Sword Branch? A seat that you once held! Is she nothing to you?"

"She is..." Johann started quietly, trying to think how to even answer such a thing like that. "...stronger without me... She always has been."

"You don't believe that... I know you don't... and neither does she."

"You talk and pry too much, Bishop... How can you even think to discuss family when you yourself have nothing of the sort?"

Jakob gives a weary smile. "The Archagents are my family, Johann... They always have been... and that's why it's important, that as a brother-in-arms, that we win this fight the right way. But to do that, we need to... as you aptly put it in many of your speeches 'set the example and stand on which many may dream to stand on'... or something to that effect." He chuckles softly.

Johann scoffed. "Silver-tongued brat... You are lucky I am too old and tired to continue this further... but I will, out of respect for your insolence, contemplate... on what has been said..."

#Archagent File: Story

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queernuck · 7 years

Note

hey sorry if this is annoying but i’m kind of dumb but i wanna know what you’re saying about pedophilia and hollywood and the church. and if its not too much trouble could you explain in a way that’s easier? i’m sorry this is anon im just embarrassed

I mean, “easier” I don’t know about, my difficulty settings are not very well scaled and I mean that both in an ironic sense and in an earnest one: I joke, I am humorous about my own style of writing, talking, being, but at the same time I am effectively forced to recognize that I talk in a way that betrays my leanings before too long: I talk too much about sports, I jam postmodernism in at every turn, and the text is everything and nothing is outside the text. All of this is to say that “easier” is, for me, likely going to require “longer” as well, so you’ll have to bear with me. First, to address the Church. It is rife with pedophiles, the Catholic Church has been in one way or another defensive of pedophiles within it as far back as I can think: if there is a meaningful way to use “pedophile” as a contemporary label in a historic context, then anyone who fits that and also is in some way part of the Church hierarchy is going to be protected. This is especially emphasized in the past half-century or so, in no small part due to the way that reports from places like the Boston Globe or the realization of the ubiquity of pedophilia in the Catholic Church in Ireland has allowed for a sufficiently sensational, sufficiently colonial subject of abuse to come to light.

This does not mean that the Church did not do anything wrong before these cases were exposed, has “fixed” anything, because it specifically took decades upon decades of “scandals” to realize that a structural inclination toward allowing (and even, through this process of allowing, encouraging) pedophilia in the Church exists, and in turn it has only resulted in occasional, superficial changes that do not go terribly far past rearranging deck chairs on a ship with no sign of sinking. For decades there have been documented cases where pedophiles were shuffled around in the Church from diocese to diocese, always before the revelation of their abuse could go past whisper, could unfurl into an event, a condemnation. Even in cases where accusations were made, and accepted, there was a superficial act of separation that in fact was merely the same act of transfer, itself disguised, as if an act of transfiguration. And this is merely what has been documented and admitted in order to prevent greater scrutiny. The problem of sex abuse in the Church is systemic.

Žižek has discussed this both in a metaphorical and in a literal sense, the way in which the aesthetics of the Church, the ideology of the priesthood, allow abusers to create a flock of victims, how the ideology around the church specifically feeds into the eventual violence, violence that is not realized or named as violence and thus is understood as something else, as an act of piety, as part of sustaining the priesthood and thus the Church. The Church cannot admit its problems, specifically because doing such would involve forsaking its very nature.

Now, the ways in which the Catholic Church has blood on its hands barely begin here, and its role in colonizing places such as Ireland or the Philippines still persists within the cultures in place to this day. However, even in naming the Catholic Church as part of this violence, one must accept that the structure which allowed them to reach out as they did was in fact one of colonial power, a colonial structure that is maintained even today. Any discussion of the Pope as part of a “global elite” that relies upon theories about secret societies and ideation of groups such as the Jesuits as dark forces of collusion misses the forest for the trees: the Church is almost unfathomably fucking depraved on its face. Imagining a deeper structure to it is denying the materially-demonstrated violence that is immediately apparent.

The Jesuits, in particular, are a sort of “occultic” or dark figure because indeed they have a history of taking part in some of the Church’s most reprehensible actions, but have also developed into one of the more important forces for liberation within frameworks of Catholic teachings on Social Justice. I am biased, I confess, for having gone to a Jesuit high school, but Jesuits are often open to some wild shit as far as theology goes. Catholicism, as a site of resistance, is additionally able to do as much: the globalizing impetus realized in Catholicism as part of colonial violence was in many ways reversed by the syncretic traditions found within the wide tent of Catholicism: the many ways in which it was largely up to relatively limited groups of missionaries to pass on the doctrine of the Church lead to numerous opportunities for doctrines just a hair away from heresy to develop as the predominant belief in any given area. And this is part of where I find the Catholic Church to be an incredibly interesting, even positive force: the way that the Catholic Church provides a site of decolonization, of creating the idea of syncretic tradition that can be meaningfully developed out of colonial legacy, the possibility of a postcolonial Catholicism is truly invigorating.

But, anyway, that is a lot of words about a short point: when a more specific entity is needed than just the Church as far as “occult” and “new world order” goes, the Jesuits are often invoked. More generally, Catholics are often seen as odd by conventional American beliefs because of how developed the idea of Protestant Christianity as “truer” than Catholicism is in America. So, you get a soft invocation of the way that people like Jack Chick see Catholicism as occultic, satanic, evil in a sense far separate from its contemptibility as a colonial artifact.

This is, in turn, transferred onto the idea of an “elite” and “pedophile rings” in politics, entertainment, so on: the idea that rather than many manifestations of the same tendency, there must be a conspiracy going on. This is a way to refuse to recognize how similar conditions enable similar patterns of abuse, to ascribe a sort of supernatural power to the events going on, to place them outside of the “Real” and thus as part of something that can be exorcised. That it echoes the Satanic Panic of the 90s is hardly a coincidence.

And of course, as history so often has done, it is realized through an implied antisemitism that conveniently ignores any meaningful analysis of the structural factors at hand in favor of various derivations of blood libel and related reactionary ideological structures. Whenever imagery of a concealed elite is present, rather than an acknowledgement of the violence allowed by the ideology openly endorsed in the process of globalization, one conducts a sleight of hand that would make Machiavelli blush. Without naming a single person, there is a very clear way in which one lays out the acceptable victims, the assumed subjectivity of the perpetrator, and those who enable it.

Anything about a “Hollywood elite” is either implying antisemitism, relying on antisemitic notions about “Hollywood” as a hyperobject (a collection of people, places, organizations, cultural products) or is just openly antisemitic. Allusions to the Occult allow for a certain lurid aestheticization that separates the understanding of the violence from any actual analysis. There are many, many pedophiles who work with child actors and who are allowed to get away with years upon years of abuse because it would damage their reputation but moreover the reputation of those who would have been able to stop such abuse but chose not to. This extends to all kinds of violence, all sorts of sexual abuse, abuse in general. It is a tendency present in police, in the military, in politicians, in youth sports, in any organization of sufficient size. But the focusing upon the idea of a “Hollywood occult elite” is very specifically relying on certain notions that a reactionary audience already holds in order to stoke certain flows of libidinal energy, to create an enemy lurid enough to fight.

tl;dr - it relies on antisemitism and other related ideas in order to ignore that the problem is not “pedophile rings” but in fact is an attitude toward abuse present throughout American culture

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